Houston startup Sage Geosystems has announced a new $1.9 million deal with the Air Force. Photo via sagegeosystems.com
The Department of the Air Force awarded Houston geothermal company Sage Geosystems Inc. a grant of $1.9 million in a first-of-its kind contract to determine whether a power plant using Geopressured Geothermal Systems is able to generate clean energy “needed for a base to achieve energy resilience,” according to a news release. The Sage facility will be the first GGS facility in the world to generate electricity, and the system will be constructed at an off-site test well in Starr County, Texas.
”We are excited to partner with the U.S. Air Force on this geothermal demonstration project,” CEO of Sage Geosystems Cindy Taff says in a news release. “Next generation geothermal technologies, like Sage Geosystems’ GGS, will be critical in providing energy resiliency at U.S. military installations.”
In addition to the grant, the company will match the grant with an additional $1.9 million for the demonstration project. The collaboration with Sage is one of three geothermal pilot projects the DAF has initiated in regards to next-generation geothermal technologies in 2024.
“We feel this is the launch pad of helping not only the DoD but many other applications throughout global markets,” 147th Civil Engineer Squadron Commander Lt Col Christian Campbell says in the release.
According to the DAF, the possibility of a full-scale project at Ellington Field Joint Air Reserve Base in Houston could usher in a new era of clean power producing plants to help meet the requirements for bases.
“This initial contract is a step forward in the Air Force’s push for energy resilience,” Kirk Phillips, director of the Air Force Office of Energy Assurance, adds in the release. “This project will improve Ellington Field’s ability to maintain operations during electrical grid outages and be completely self-sufficient for their energy needs.”
The GGS process works by repurposing fracking technology to extract thermal energy from below the Earth’s surface.GGS also demonstrates the opportunity for the civilian sector by surpassing the intermittency challenges for solar and wind energy generation. GSS can also work towards minimizing land use, which enables the technology to be used in urban areas without relying on transmission line build outs that can be expensive.
“This project, and the future Department of the Air Force projects that it paves the way for, will help to assure that our national security needs are met by our installations during critical emergencies,” Phillips continues.
The six finalists for the sustainability category for the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards weigh in on their challenges overcome. Photos courtesy
Six Houston-area sustainability startups have been named finalists in the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards, but they didn't achieve this recognition — as well as see success for their businesses — without any obstacles.
The finalists were asked what their biggest challenges have been. From funding to market adoption, the sustainability companies have had to overcome major obstacles to continue to develop their businesses.
The awards program — hosted by EnergyCapital's sister site, InnovationMap, and Houston Exponential — will name its winners on November 8 at the Houston Innovation Awards. The program was established to honor the best and brightest companies and individuals from the city's innovation community. Eighteen energy startups were named as finalists across all categories, but the following responses come from the finalists in the sustainability category specifically.
"As an early-stage clean energy developer, we struggled to convince key suppliers to work on our commercial pilot project. Suppliers were skeptical of our unproven technology and, given limited inventory from COVID, preferred to prioritize larger clients. We overcame this challenge by bringing on our top suppliers as strategic investors. With a long-term equity stake in Fervo, leading oilfield services companies were willing to provide Fervo with needed drilling rigs, frack crews, pumps, and other equipment." — Tim Latimer, founder and CEO of Fervo Energy
2. Finding funding
"Securing funding in Houston as a solo cleantech startup founder and an immigrant with no network. Overcome that by adopting a milestone-based fundraising approach and establishing credibility through accelerator/incubator programs." — Anas Al Kassas, CEO and founder of INOVUES
"The biggest challenge has been finding funding. Most investors are looking towards software development companies as the capital costs are low in case of a risk. Geothermal costs are high, but it is physical technology that needs to be implemented to safety transition the energy grid to reliable, green power." — Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems
3. Market adoption
"Market adoption by convincing partners and government about WHP as a solution, which is resource-intensive. Making strides by finding the correct contacts to educate." — Janice Tran, CEO and co-founder of Kanin Energy
"We are creating a brand new financial instrument at the intersection of carbon markets and power markets, both of which are complicated and esoteric. Our biggest challenge has been the cold-start problem associated with launching a new product that has effectively no adoption. We tackled this problem by leading the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (a group of corporates and battery developers looking for sustainability solutions in the power space), which has opened up access to customers on both sides of our marketplace. We have also leveraged our deep networks within corporate power procurement and energy storage development to talk to key decision-makers at innovative companies with aggressive climate goals to become early adopters of our products and services." — Emma Konet, CTO and co-founder of Tierra Climate
4. Long scale timelines
"Scaling and commercializing industrial technologies takes time. We realized this early on and designed the eXERO technology to be scalable from the onset. We developed the technology at the nexus of traditional electrolysis and conventional gas processing, taking the best of both worlds while avoiding their main pitfalls." — Claus Nussgruber, CEO of Utility Global
Fervo Energy’s flagship project in Utah just generated its first geothermal power.
The electricity is now flowing to the power grid from one of Cape Station’s three generation units, Houston-based Fervo said in a news release. This represents an early but important milestone for the project, as the unit isn’t scheduled to deliver contracted power until Oct. 1.
The achievement, coming four months after Fervo’s roughly $2.2 billion IPO, demonstrates the viability of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
“This is a gamechanger for the geothermal industry. It establishes EGS as the defining new power generation technology of our time, and we believe it shows that the commercial and technical maturity of EGS is ready to meet the urgent need for reliable, clean power,” Tim Latimer, co-founder and CEO of Fervo, said in the release.
The plant’s two other units are scheduled to launch commercial operations on Jan. 1.
The three units make up the project’s 99-megawatt first phase. The next phase, which will add 400 megawatts of capacity, is under construction. The second phase is set to go online in 2028.
Altogether, Cape Station will provide more than 4 gigawatts of capacity, with 900 megawatts already spoken for. The 900 megawatts of contracted electricity would be enough to power nearly 1 million U.S. homes per year.
“Cape Station works because we treated the subsurface like an engineering challenge,” Jack Norbeck, co-founder and chief technology officer of Fervo, added in the release. “Years of drilling, completion design, subsurface modeling, and flow testing led to this moment, and this is the validation that matters most.”
Enhanced geothermal continuously draws on heat that’s deep underground, producing electricity around the clock regardless of weather or time of day. That makes it one of the only carbon-free resources capable of constant power delivery, which is critical for data centers and AI infrastructure.
While hundreds of thousands descend on New York for Climate Week, Houston offered a different proposition: come where the work is being built. And last week Houston proved that it’s solving for more energy and fewer emissions; reliability and affordability; speed and durability. We are solving for the “&.”
That equation sharpened last week. On Sept. 14, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it had repealed most 2024 federal carbon-pollution standards for power plants and proposed rescinding remaining greenhouse-gas requirements. Policy matters, but it can pivot. The need to build does not.
HECW is a proving ground, not another conference stop. As I wrote in the Houston Chronicle, Mayor Sylvester Turner planted the seed by insisting we bring people together across the city and industry to drive Houston’s energy future. He knew false choices have no place here: oil and gas and clean technology; prosperity and stewardship; industry and lower emissions.
ECW joined the Climate Week Network this year, connecting Houston to a growing community of more than 500,000 people across 22-plus cities. We now have a seat at the global table—and a responsibility to use it well, building with other cities and the wider clean-energy-solutions world rather than merely talking at them.
The capital is already moving. Since 2017, Houston Energy Transition Initiative member companies have invested more than $95 billion in low-carbon infrastructure, technologies, and research and development. This is where the transition is financed, engineered, tested and operated. But the work requires more than capital. It requires capital allocators who understand the difference between a promising idea and a project that can scale, hire and endure.
Last week was Houston’s show and tell. At ARTECHOUSE, The &Bassador Reception & Awards brought art, technology, culture, philanthropy and energy together. Then the week went beyond downtown.
Sugar Land Town Square became the launchpad for the Metro Innovation Tour & Market: a place for an ecosystem conversation about smart cities, clean energy, equitable access and next-generation mobility before participants boarded three tour routes across greater Houston. It was also the starting point for the Bay City South Innovation Tour to Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County, where small groups saw Earth Mount solar modules being installed in real time. The conversation did not end at a panel. It went to the project site.
The HTX Tech Tours included a visit to the Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County. Photo courtesy
Approximately 100 startups from around the world pitched at Rice Alliance, Greentown Labs and Halliburton Labs events. At Astros Night at Daikin Park, builders, backers, and believers traded conference rooms for the diamond, creating an experience, not just another event. That is how this work becomes civic fabric.
Activation also means making the energy story felt, not merely explained. AY Young brought the Battery Tour for live performances. It was a reminder that the “Power of &” is not confined to a boardroom or a laboratory. Art and technology, culture and commerce, a new generation and established industry can share the same stage—and help more people see themselves in the work ahead.
Perhaps no activation made the “Power of &” more immediate and real than the Houston, We Have Solutions open mic night. At Creatopia’s Innovation Studio, people took the mic—or simply listened—to share what they were building, the problem they could not stop thinking about, and the connection they hoped to make. It put founders, artists, community builders, researchers and future-makers in one room. That is collaboration in real time: different kinds of expertise meeting before anyone knows exactly what the solution will be.
FOX26 helped carry that story beyond the rooms we convened, hosting Erthos COO Jessica Knight, Mars Materials co-founder Aaron Fitzgerald, and investors Taylor Chapman and Juliana Garaizar to discuss building and backing the future in Houston. Our region should be proud—not as self-congratulation, but because the world is beginning to experience energy and climate solutions firsthand.
This was also a week to give back. Allies in Energy awarded $27,500 to nine organizations advancing energy and climate literacy, civil dialogue, workforce pathways and community action. NRG Energy’s Brighter Communities provided a founding gift to expand the week and fund local grants. It took partners, hosts, sponsors, volunteers, funders and community organizations. That is the “Power of &”: collaboration that leaves a stronger community behind.
The “Power of &” cannot stop at Houston’s city limits. Louisiana’s participation—through its support of the Digital Delta Symposium & Expo—made clear that Houston’s builder ecosystem is regional by necessity. Gulf Coast infrastructure, supply chains, talent, and industrial decisions do not recognize state lines. Neither should our collaboration. If we are serious about building more energy with fewer emissions, we must align capital, resources and opportunity across the entire Gulf Coast.
That same commitment to practical collaboration means listening, learning and adjusting. A builder’s mindset does not protect a plan simply because it came first; it improves the conditions for the work to succeed. That is why Houston Energy and Climate Week will move to April 4–10, 2027—better weather, more time and space for connection, and a stronger city-wide experience for the people building what comes next.
But the real test begins now. Can we keep widening the circle? Can we continue to turn research into projects, pilots into infrastructure, capital into good jobs and climate ambition into results that families and communities can see? Can we make every new solution stronger by bringing in the people who must finance it, build it, operate it, live beside it and benefit from it?
That is the work ahead. Turner understood that Houston does not move forward by asking who wins the argument. It moves forward by asking who is ready to solve the problem. His legacy—and the promise of the “&”—is an invitation to choose collaboration over division, action over performance and possibility over false choices.
The future does not need another city to talk about it. It needs Houston to keep building it. And it will only be built if we keep choosing the "&."
Responding to public outcry, Gov. Greg Abbott has stepped up his campaign against data centers by temporarily halting approval of environmental permits for data center projects.
This and previous moves by Abbott essentially amount to a temporary freeze on the development of new data centers in Texas. His actions come at a time when Texas’ stature as a data center hub has been soaring.
On Monday, Abbott directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing permits for data center developments until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Public Utility Commission of Texas complete their review of projects seeking power grid connections.
With regulatory reviews underway and environmental permitting now frozen, state regulators currently cannot approve or deny requests from data center developers, Abbott said.
In a letter to the environmental quality commission’s executive director, Kelly Keel, Abbott said this directive is “consistent with my whole-of-government approach to ensure Texans’ natural resources and way of life are protected.”
Abbott previously ordered the Texas Water Development Board to require data centers to meet reporting requirements for water use. He also told the board to impose penalties for failure to comply with those requirements and to collaborate with ERCOT on its review.
Abbott launched his crackdown on data centers in August by ordering the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to review data center projects in Texas. The audits will examine all data centers in the queue for interconnections before any more projects can move forward. Interconnections enable data centers to share power, data and computing resources.
In calling for those audits, Abbott cited concerns over data centers’ use of water and electricity, and the centers’ effect on infrastructure expenses and consumers’ utility rates.
“Simply put, Texans must come first,” the governor said.
During next year’s legislation session, Abbott will push for the elimination of state financial incentives for data center projects.
Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, told Reuters that Abbott was backtracking on “his earlier pronouncements about data centers leading to lower electricity prices.”
Abbott’s actions come amid growing public backlash over data centers. A recent University of Houston survey found that nearly 63 percent of Houston-area residents opposed construction of a data center within a mile of their home.
The HTX Tech Tours included a visit to the Erthos Project Bravo in Matagorda County. Photo courtesy